U.S. Congress now a divided house in a divided country

'The mailing of pipe bombs to his opponents, by a registered Republican and avowed Trump supporter, knocked Trump off message. So did the killing of 11 Jewish worshippers on the Sabbath at a Pittsburgh synagogue.'

It’s not at all unusual for a sitting U.S. president and his party to take a major hit in the midterm congressional elections.

In 2006, with George W. Bush in the White House, the Republicans lost 30 seats and control of the House of Representatives, and were reduced to a 49-49 tie in the 100-seat Senate, with independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman caucusing with the Democrats. (Sanders, easily re-elected in Vermont on Tuesday night, still does, and may be running for the Democratic presidential nomination again in 2020.)

Asked about losing control of Congress the next day, Bush famously replied: “It was a thumping.”

In 2010, in Barack Obama’s first term, the Democrats lost the 435-member House by 49 seats, with the Republicans gaining an astonishing 63 districts.

Asked on the morrow to describe the result, Obama called it “a shellacking.”

Back in 1994, in Bill Clinton’s first midterms, the GOP proposed a “Republican Revolution,” and a “Contract with America.” The Republicans gained 54 seats and a majority in the House, and a previously obscure Congressman named Newt Gingrich became speaker of the House.

In 2018, the Democrats needed to gain 23 seats on Tuesday to win control of the House, a very do-able deal, particularly with Donald Trump in the White House. He wasn’t on the ballot, but he was on everyone’s mind, with a 55 per cent disapproval rating in a CNN exit poll, and only 41 per cent saying America was headed in the right direction.

As for the Senate, the Democrats had a steeper hill to climb. The Republicans went into the race with a 51-49 majority in the Senate, but, more to the point, the map worked in their favour: 26 out of 35 Senate seats in play were held by Democrats.

Nearly 70 per cent of participants in the CNN exit poll thought the economy was moving in the right direction, with unemployment at 3.7 per cent, the lowest in half a century, and GDP growth at 3.5 per cent in the third quarter, not to mention tax cuts — all of which suggest Trump should have been campaigning on the economy.

But Trump’s economic slogan was not “jobs, jobs, jobs,” but “jobs, not mobs” — his way of making it not about the economy, but about protesters against his presidency. But the mailing of pipe bombs to 14 of his opponents, by a registered Republican and avowed Trump supporter, knocked Trump off message. So did the tragic killing of 11 Jewish worshippers on the Sabbath at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

So Trump reverted to divisive form in his closing argument of the last week, barnstorming around the country, arguing the imperative of stopping migrants from Central America traversing Mexico and crossing the Texas border into the U.S. He’s deploying 15,000 armed troops and guards to prevent 4,000 homeless, starving people from entering the U.S., even though they still have 1,000 kilometres to walk through Mexico.

Then the Trump campaign ran a prime-time anti-immigrant ad on the weekend that CNN declined to carry, calling it “racist,” while NBC pulled it after it aired on top-rated NFL Sunday Night football. Even the pro-Trump Fox News channel dumped it.

Trump even threatened last week to end birthright citizenship of children born of undocumented immigrants. He said he would do so by executive order of the president. But he overlooked, or was ignorant of, the 14th amendment of the constitution of the United States. which automatically confers citizenship on anyone born in the U.S. And amending the U.S. constitution requires the support of two-thirds of both houses of Congress. Imagine, an American president who doesn’t know the U.S. constitution.

What’s interesting is that, in the CNN exit poll, 47 per cent thought Trump’s policy on undocumented immigrants was too tough, while only 16 per cent said it wasn’t tough enough, with 32 per cent replying it was about right. It was a wash, but with three times as many voters disapproving than approving of Trump’s aggressive posturing on immigration.

The attitudinals of the exit polls did not bode well for the Republicans, at least in the House. But in the Senate, the Dems would have had to hold all 26 of their own seats in play, and win two out of nine from the GOP to gain a majority, highly unlikely political odds.

As predicted, the Dems gained control of the House, while the GOP retained and strengthened their hold on the Senate.

What does it mean? Well, checks and balances on the Trump presidency. The Democrats fell short of a blue wave, but in winning the House, they’ve won the committee chairs and the capacity to set the legislative agenda. They’ve also gained the power of subpoena to investigate Trump’s tax returns and real estate dealings.

What do the mixed results mean for Canada and the new North American trade agreement? It remains to be seen. A lame-duck session of the outgoing Republican Congress might still ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement this month, before the new Mexican government takes office on Dec 1. Failing that, it’s not clear how a new Democratic majority in the House would vote on the USMCA in January.

The U.S. Congress is now a divided house, in a divided country. As for Trump, while he took a hit, it was not a thumping.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy, the bi-monthly magazine of Canadian politics and public policy. He is the author of six books. He served as chief speechwriter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1985-88, and later as head of the public affairs division of the Canadian Embassy in Washington from 1992-94.